


as the dust settles

by epilogues



Series: life cycle of a phoenix [1]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Coming Out, Fix-It, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, everyone cares about each other and it's going to be okay!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-11-02 07:44:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20672384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epilogues/pseuds/epilogues
Summary: The day after they kill It, Richie goes to the kissing bridge.





	as the dust settles

**Author's Note:**

> slight spoiler warning for the ending of it!! this is canon divergent but like. the fact that This is not what happens is technically a spoiler so !! just in case!!
> 
> anyway so i finished reading it + saw chapter 2 in the same day and had..... a lot of emotions!! this is more movie-based, but does converge from the ending a bit!! i hope u enjoy!!

The day after they kill It, Richie goes to the kissing bridge.

He drives there from the town house, his car packed with his bags and the question of which road he’ll take next - the one out of Derry, the one back to the town house with everyone else, or the one to the hospital. But that’s a decision that he doesn’t have to make yet, so Richie leaves it in the passenger seat as he gets out of the car and walks onto the bridge.

The old wood creaks under his feet. Birds call back and forth from all sides. The water of the Kenduskeag passes far below, slowly and without much fanfare. Richie closes his eyes.

He doesn’t know if he’ll forget once he leaves, that’s the problem. If this whole trip will fade away back into the corner his childhood sat in for twenty-seven years. If he’ll end up on the road again with that middling feeling of _wrong _sitting underneath his skin.

There are certainly things that Richie wants to forget, but - there are also things that he needs to remember.

Richie steps up to the railing of the bridge and runs his fingers idly across some of the carvings. _Jenny + Adam, Mike + Katie, Grace + Jim, _in which _Jim _is covering up a tangled scrawl of other lines. These are the newest carvings, crammed into whatever blank space is left, the letters set deep into the wood like fresh wounds. _Jake + Marie, Lily + Ethan. _

Richie tears his eyes away and steps further down the bridge, crouching down in a spot he’s only been in once before but will always know. This is one of the things he only remembered late after returning to Derry.

The memories had been like an earthquake. There was the initial, when Mike called, just a tremor of foreshadowing in the ground. The restaurant was the worst, as old fault lines tore open and clashed. As Richie saw his old friends. As he saw _Eddie. _From then on out, every few steps would carry an aftershock. _The hammock. Every day in the Barrens. Bowers at the arcade. Movies at the Aladdin. _And now, _here. _This.

The wood is almost completely covered in carvings now, but Richie finds what he’s looking for as soon as he reaches out for it.

_R + E._

The letters are surprisingly legible for their twenty-seven years. The E, though, is a bit more faded than the R, which is understandable considering both the weather and the hesitation with which it was written.

Richie reaches into his pocket, blowing out a heavy sigh as his fingers close around the handle of his pocketknife. He flicks the blade out and has just touched the tip to the wood when the sound of someone clearing their throat causes him to jump away.

“Uh-“ he says, searching for a quick excuse. He’s a grown man, Jesus, what is he doing here?

But, in a stroke of luck that Richie can’t yet qualify as good or bad, the person standing behind him is Bill.

“Oh, hey, Bill,” Richie says, dropping the knife into his jacket pocket and standing up, making sure to keep his body between Bill’s eyes and the carving.

“Hey,” Bill says. It’s still slightly weird to hear him not stutter after all this time. “What are you doing down here?”

“Why don’t you ask your mom?” Richie blurts. He leans back against the railing of the bridge in a move that he hopes looks casual and tries to get his heart to stop flopping in his chest like a fish with no eyes that came out of a fort”une cookie and -

Bill sighs. “Richie.”

“I’m just seeing the sights, y’know? Reunion tour of me and my greatest hits before I leave this hellhole,” Richie says. He doesn’t know why he’s still so afraid of Bill finding out, of _anyone _finding out at all, but not understanding a fear does nothing to lessen it. His breath is starting to pick up; he wishes Eddie was here with his inhaler.

There’s a moment where Richie thinks Bill is going to buy it, and some of the tension in his shoulders and jaw gets ready to leave, but then Bill’s eyes dart to the outline of a knife in Richie’s pocket.

“You’re carving something, dude, what is it?”

“Nothing,” Richie insists, but then he makes the rather rookie mistake of looking at Bill.

Bill is staring directly at him, Big Bill, who always knew what to do and kept the group together, _Bill, _and Richie knows that he’s not going to be able to keep this from him. So, with a step filled with more trepidation than the ones that took him through the sewers, Richie moves to the side.

It takes Bill’s eyes a moment to land on the R, another to land on the E, and another to process what it means, but when he turns to face Richie again, Richie knows he knows.

“It’s not - it was back when - I’m -“ Richie tries, words rushing out because the truths he’s spent the majority of his life trying to face _can’t _just be out in the open like this, Bill can’t know that one of his best friends is a fucking _fag,_ and -

He’s cut off when Bill steps forward and wraps his arms around him tightly. “Beep beep, Richie,” Bill says softly. “It’s okay.”

Richie opens his mouth to defend himself, but then Bill’s words actually process. _It’s okay. _

“Bill,” Richie starts, and he’s surprised when the name comes out as a sob.

“Shhh,” Bill murmurs. “Just breathe, Rich.”

For a long moment, Richie does.

He lets himself breathe for what very well might be the first time since he met Eddie Kaspbrak and knew, even if he didn’t call it love at first, that his life was never going to be the same from there on out. He lets himself breathe, and he lets himself cry.

It takes what feels like hours, but eventually, Richie feels himself starting to calm down. He shifts some of his weight off of Bill and stands on his own feet again, pulling his arms way and wiping his eyes with the back of his jacket sleeve.“I….” he begins, before realizing that for once, he really has no idea what to say.

“You should go talk to him, Richie,” Bill says. He steps back slightly but keeps a gentle hand on Richie’s shoulder. “None of us are going to judge you, you know. Eddie _definitely _won’t.”

Richie turns away and stares back down at the bridge. _R + E, R + E, R + E. _“I should probably just leave,” he mumbles. “Besides, he has a wife now, who am I to even try and mess with that?”

Bill’s quiet for a moment, and Richie would bet about six dollars that he’s rolling his eyes. “Eddie basically married his mom, okay, dude, you’d be doing him a favor by messing with it.”

“But-“

“Nope. Go. Trust me.”

Richie huffs. The water rushes underneath the bridge. Bill says nothing.

Finally, Richie turns back around, the tension returning to his body but in a completely different way. “Okay,” he agrees reluctantly. “I’ll go… talk to him. Just - don’t tell the others yet, okay? I need - this has to be something I do on my terms.”

“Of course,” Bill says. “I need to get going, I was just walking through here on my way to the library, but… I’ll see you later, Rich.”

Richie nods, wiping at his eyes again when he starts to feel himself tearing up just a bit. “Yeah, yeah, see ya, Big Bill.”

Bill sets off down the bridge with a small smile and a wave, and just before he’s out of earshot, he turns back and calls, “We all love you, you know.”

Richie, who is definitely crying again, just a bit, smiles. “I know.”

He stands for a while, watching Bill until he rounds a corner and disappears from sight, then turns back to the carving and pulls his knife out once more.

Richie traces over the E, not too deeply yet, but enough for now, before closing his knife and heading back to his car.

The question of _Where next? _floats at him from the passenger seat. Richie takes a deep breath, makes eye contact with himself in the rearview mirror, and heads towards the hospital.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! feedback is always really appreciated! :D


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